Cutting a Dash is the Radio 4 series that inspired Lynn Truss to write her bestselling book about punctuation. In this neat compilation, Truss presents arguments for and against the different uses of punctuation in such a humorous way that the most stubborn offender would find it hard to resist reform.

She emphasises the importance of the comma and turns the sentence 'He walked on his head in the air' upside down by placing the pause in the wrong place. Truss also goes to a market to illustrate the abuse the apostrophe suffers at the hands of greengrocers. 'Banana's, tomato's, po-tato's' she spells out with disdain. With Fay Weldon, she discusses the popularity of the colon and semi-colon, the use of which is considered the height of literary snobbery. We hear Ralph Richardson talk about Shaw's obsession with them.

We also learn from historians that women use exclamation marks more than men! And the future of punctuation could lie in the emoticon, a short cut that expresses happiness or sadness. Thankfully, they have yet to catch on :-)